|
Register | Sign In |
|
QuickSearch
Thread ▼ Details |
|
Thread Info
|
|
|
Author | Topic: Who Made God? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1699 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Why do you bother going to church and claim to believe the creeds when you say stuff llke that?
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 94 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
Because I am at least honest.
I understand there is no such thing as "the God of the Bible" and that there is no consistent characterization of any God or god in the Bible. I understand that the God in Genesis 1 is an entirely different creation than the much older God found in Genesis 2&3. Humans created the God of Genesis 2&3 and much later humans created the God of Genesis 1. Even earlier humans created Ganesha and Ra and Nut and Horus and Saturn and Hypnos and Eros. Later humans created Allah. They are all the product of the human mind. At least the Buddha and Confucius and Lao-Tzu have a basis in reality and actually existed.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1699 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
If I believed as you do I wouldn't consider myself a Christian, and I can't think of any reason to go to church at all in that case.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 94 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
But you are not me and I am a Christian. And the fact remains that all of the Gods and gods that we can and have ever described are simply human creations.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18650 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.3 |
If what you say is true, you do not really believe in a God who exists outside of your imagination.
If I understand what you have written previously, you would say that you believe yet do not know, which is honest but which limits the commitment of your belief. If I were to say, for example, that I believe in God but that there is a high probability that I am wrong, I am simply reducing my belief to a finite mathematical possibility---a chance, as it were. Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given. Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. ~RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
Subjectivism may very well undermine Christianity.In the same way that "allowing people to choose what they want to be when they grow up" undermines communism.~Stile
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 667 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
|
to jar, Phat writes:
Belief is always limited to what we don't know. If I understand what you have written previously, you would say that you believe yet do not know, which is honest but which limits the commitment of your belief.All that are in Hell, choose it. -- CS Lewis That's just egregiously stupid. -- ringo
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 94 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined: |
It's been obvious for almost two decades that you do not understand what I have written or even most of what you have posted.
Phat writes: If what you say is true, you do not really believe in a God who exists outside of your imagination. I do not believe in a God or god that anyone can or has imagined. How many Gods are described in the Bible stories themselves? When two entirely different and mutually exclusive gods are described as God in the very first book of the Bible can there be any other reasonable conclusion than that both descriptions are simply the creation of the authors and editors and redactors?
Phat writes: If I understand what you have written previously, you would say that you believe yet do not know, which is honest but which limits the commitment of your belief. Too funny and yet another proof that you simply do not understand what you post. How can not knowing limit anyone's commitment to what they believe? If something is known is there any reason or need for belief? Edited by jar, : fix quote box
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18650 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 4.3 |
Thuzy, replying to jar writes: The proper answer here is to say "How can I?" ringo sums it up: If what you say is true, you do not really believe in a God who exists outside of your imagination. Belief is always limited to what we don't know.
Thugzy, to jar writes: Whereupon jar shoots back: If I understand what you have written previously, you would say that you believe yet do not know...It's been obvious for almost two decades that you do not understand what I have written or even most of what you have posted. And I call nonsense! I know your arguments better than anyone else here at EvC, though you might have a case in that I don't fully understand what I post(quite often, anyway) but I am making a valiant attempt to further explain my position.
Thugzy, earlier responding to jar writes: Whereupon jar responds: If I were to say, for example, that I believe in God but that there is a high probability that I am wrong, I am simply reducing my belief to a finite mathematical possibility---a chance, as it were. I do not believe in a God or god that anyone can or has imagined. How many Gods are described in the Bible stories themselves? When two entirely different and mutually exclusive gods are described as God in the very first book of the Bible can there be any other reasonable conclusion than that both descriptions are simply the creation of the authors and editors and redactors? Yes. We argue that the Bible is divinely inspired. You guys critically examine it and refuse to place it on a pedestal. This makes for a good argument, at any rate.
Let's re-examine that transcript, if for nothing else to contrast the argument that RC Sproul makes with the critically detached approach which you and perhaps ringo take. RC Sproul Lecture(edited) writes: ringo thinks this makes for an evil God, seeing as how He has the power to prevent many things which are allowed. And you critics could further argue that I too am arguing in favor of a Calvinist God, seeing as how I use Sprouls argument, to begin with. I would argue that God only created the possibility of evil which became actualized once Lucifer chose it--a dogmatic hypothetical argument yet in my mind a good one!
The great Augustine in the fourth century made the comment, carefully now, think carefully, that God ordains, at least in some sense, everything that comes to pass. It may be in a passive sense, what some people call God's will of permission.It's a little bit misleading, that term as if He gives His endorsement or sanction on your sin. He permits your sin in the sense that He doesn't stop you from doing it.RC writes: Critics will say at this point that Sproul is playing fast and loose with the belief, assuming that he knows how God thinks. Let's allow his argument to fully develop, however. He doesn’t sanction it, but any time that you commit a sin, God at that moment always had the power to prevent you from doing it. He could have squashed you like a bug, taken the breath out of your lungs at that minute...and stopped you from doing it, and the fact that He didn't intervene, that He didn't intrude, the fact that He decided to let you do it, not with His blessing, but to give you the ability to do it without preventing you from doing it, in a certain sense, you see, He chose that it should come to pass, because He is absolutely sovereign over everything that happens. And I said, "Do you realize that if there's one maverick molecule running loose in this cosmos beyond the pale, beyond the scope of God's sovereign control and authority, you have no reason as a Christian to believe a single promise of the future that God has made?RC writes: I agree with this argument. There is no way that the God described could coexist in a universe with random chance. Unless, of course, He was Loki the trickster. Anyway, let's continue analyzing RC Sprouls lecture: One maverick molecule could destroy all of the plans, not only of mice and men but of Almighty God if God does not ordain whatsoever comes to pass.Remember when you were children, you learned a little story: "For want of the nail, the shoe was lost. For want of the shoe, the horse was lost. For want of the horse, the rider was lost. For want of the rider, the battle was lost. For want of the battle, the war was lost, all because of one nail." When I was a boy, one of my heroes was a race driver by the name of Bill Vukovich, who was killed in the Indianapolis 500. When that super expensive piece of machinery, a prototype, costing tens of thousands of dollars to build and construct, failed in a turn because a 10 cent cotter pin broke. A grain of sand in the kidney of Oliver Cromwell changed the course of history. A piece of lead in the brain of John F. Kennedy changed the course of American history. The battle of Fort Duquesne, the French and Indian war, a young lieutenant had five horses shot out from under him and one bullet from an enemy rifle went through his shirt as it flapped in the breeze and it went in one side of his shirt and out the other side of the shirt without even creasing the skin on his back, and he survived that battle, and George Washington became the first president of the United States. You know, a tenth of an inch and he wouldn't have survived that battle of Fort Duquesne.But by chance he made it, through the fortunes of circumstances. Kennedy was in the wrong place at the wrong time . I don't know. One maverick molecule outside the authority of God's sovereign control could thwart His plans and prevent the return of Christ, could prevent the vindication of faith that you hold dear. Beloved, there is no such thing as chance. RC Sproul writes: Which is why I use the quote in my signature. I was in a discussion once with a professor at Harvard University.He taught in the graduate school at Harvard in the field of philosophy of science. And we were talking about the origin of the cosmos, and he didn't believe in God. And I said, "Well, where do you think the universe came from?" And he said, "Well, the universe was created by chance." And I said, you know, "The universe was created by chance? I'm not sure I understand what you mean." I said, "Are you telling me that the power supply for everything that is... the Big Bang...of the entire universe, that it was ultimately caused by chance?" And he said, "Yes." I said, "That's amazing!" I said, "Don't you realize that chance can't do anything?" He said, "What do you mean?"And I said, "Well, let me show you what I mean." And I took a coin out of my hand, out of my pocket and I said, "I'll say to you here, if I took a 50 cent piece and balanced it on my thumb, and I said to you, I'm gonna flip this coin up in the air, what are the chances that it comes up head or tails? What're the chances?" Hmm? Go ahead. One in two. What's the percentage? 50-50. "No, no, no, no, no, 50-50." Now listen to what I said. I said if I flip the coin what are the chances that it comes up heads or tails? A 100%, unless it stands on its head somehow. You know, I fooled you, didn’t I? Ha, ha . Okay what we mean though, is I said, "Okay if I flip that coin, what are the chances that it will come up heads?" 50-50, you know 50% chance, because there are only two options and only two sides of the coin. And so we say the odds are, the chances are that it will come up heads 50% of the time. Now what I asked this gentleman from Harvard was, "How much influence does chance exert on the flip of the coin? What causes that coin to come up heads? Does it have anything to do with where I start, whether it's heads up or tails up? How much pressure I exert with my thumb, the density of the atmosphere, how many revolutions it makes, whether I catch it here, here or here, and after I catch it, whether I turn it over or don't turn it over." There are all those variables. We could add to those variables, so many complexities that would drive us nuts, trying to predict how it's gonna turn out. But we can cut the Gordian knot, we can reduce the options to the simple options that are there mathematically. The mathematical possibilities are there could be one in two, and so I say, the chances are 50-50 that it's going to come up heads. But how much power, how much force does chance exert? Absolutely none. And I said to that professor, "Chance cannot do anything, because chance isn't anything." RC writes: He said, "What do you mean?"I said, "The word chance is a word that we use, a cipher, a symbol to describe mathematical possibilities. You're now giving to chance not just an empty word to describe possibilities, you're giving it being, power, ability to do work." I said, "Chance can do nothing because chance is not a thing. It's not an entity. It is no thing." Let me say it again, "It is no thing." Faster, "It is no thing." Even faster, "It is nothing! Do you see that? Chance has no being, and if it has no being, it has no power. For something to do something, it first must be."And when I said that, that good professor went like this, "Yes, of course, what could be more obvious. I can't believe I made that mistake." Isn't it interesting that some of the most foolish mistakes are the kinds of mistakes made by the most learned and brilliant of people? Comments?Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. ~RC Sproul "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
Subjectivism may very well undermine Christianity.In the same way that "allowing people to choose what they want to be when they grow up" undermines communism.~Stile
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tangle Member Posts: 9581 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 6.5 |
Phat writes: I would argue that God only created the possibility of evil which became actualized once Lucifer chose it--a dogmatic hypothetical argument yet in my mind a good one! Did you read this after you posted it? You seem to be into post modernism these days. Does it still make sense to you?Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Theodoric Member Posts: 9489 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 6.1 |
No different than most other religious mumbo-jumbo. Word salad that actually means nothing but seems to have a soporific effect on the rubes.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
jar Member (Idle past 94 days) Posts: 34140 From: Texas!! Joined:
|
RC Sproul loves to hear himself talk but it all boils down to Word Salad.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Theodoric Member Posts: 9489 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 6.1 |
Prove to us that Sproul isn't just regurgitating word salad. Tell us what this spew means and how it is important.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dredge Member Posts: 2855 From: Australia Joined: |
jar writes:
So why, after reading about all these other gods, did I dismiss them as fables and accept the Bible as the truth?
Humans created the God of Genesis 2&3 and much later humans created the God of Genesis 1. Even earlier humans created Ganesha and Ra and Nut and Horus and Saturn and Hypnos and Eros. Later humans created Allah.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Dredge Member Posts: 2855 From: Australia Joined: |
Tanypteryx writes:
Where did the energy and matter that makes up the universe come from?
Fiction
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Theodoric Member Posts: 9489 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 6.1 |
No one knows. There are some ideas and hypotheses but no one knows. Just because no one knows does not mean godidit.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
|
|
|
Do Nothing Button
Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved
Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024